Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review Volume 20 | Issue 1 2013 Private Copyright Reform Kristelia A. García The George Washington University Law School Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.law.umich.edu/mttlr Part of the Contracts Commons, Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Kristelia A. García, Private Copyright Reform, 20 Mich. Telecomm. & Tech. L. Rev. 1 (2013). Available at: http://repository.law.umich.edu/mttlr/vol20/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. PRIVATE COPYRIGHT REFORM Kristelia A. Garc´ıa* Cite as: Kristelia A. Garc´ıa, Private Copyright Reform, 20 MICH. TELECOMM. & TECH. L. REV. 1 (2013). This manuscript may be accessed online at repository.law.umich.edu. The government is not the only player in copyright reform, and perhaps not even the most important. Left to free market negotiation, risk averse licensors and licensees are contracting around the statutory license for certain types of copyright-protected content, and achieving greater effi- ciency via private ordering. This emerging phenomenon, herein termed “private copyright reform,” presents both adverse selection and dis- tributive justice concerns: first, circumvention of the statutory license goes against legislative intent by allowing for the reduction, and even elimination, of statutorily mandated royalties owed to non-parties.